Solar Tornadoes Dance Across Sun's Surface in NASA Video

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A NASA spacecraft has captured an amazing video of solar twisters
blowing across the surface of the sun.

The tornado-like eruptions of super-hot plasma were spotted by
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is constantly recording
high-definition videos of the sun.

The sun tornado
video shows swirling fountains of plasma creeping across the
surface of the sun during a 30-hour period between Feb. 7 and 8.
But unlike tornadoes on Earth, which are wind-driven phenomena,
the sun's plasma tornadoes are shaped by the powerful magnetic
field of our star.

"An active region rotating into view provides a bright backdrop
to the gyrating streams of plasma," SDO mission scientists
explained in a video description. "The particles are being pulled
this way and that by competing magnetic forces. They are tracking
along strands of magnetic field lines."

In the video, cooler plasma material appears as darker spots on a
bright background. The SDO spacecraft recorded the video in the
extreme ultraviolet range of the light spectrum, giving the movie
an eerie yellow hue.

NASA released the new SDO video to mark the second anniversary of
the spacecraft's mission, which launched on Feb. 11, 2010. The
$850 million spacecraft is on a five-year mission to record
high-definition videos of the sun to help astronomers better
understand how changes in the
sun's solar weather cycle can affect life on Earth.

The sun is currently in an active period of its 11-year weather
cycle. The current cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24 and will peak
in 2013.

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